Hey there, Hungry Ninja. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re hungry, but pizza? Pffft. That’s not ninja food. Because, after all, the origins of the ninja path and the pizza foodstuff do not coincide. They don’t even run parallel. Different continents (more or less). Different hats. And when the ninja masters of yore threw around objects, I’m sure you’d tell me, they were far pointier and deadlier than pizza dough. I agree with you, Hungry Ninja. So I can see where you’d get this idea:

It’s perfectly understandable. But Hungry Ninja, I am here to tell you that contrary to initial judgments, pizza does indeed fit quite well into the ninja lifestyle. Let’s look at how.

Now, the beauty of pizza, Hungry Ninja, is that it lends itself to a myriad of interpretations and toppings. But before we delve into that aspect, let’s discuss another one of pizza’s strengths: it can be prepared in stages, thereby fitting itself quite easily into the busy ninja lifestyle.

First, you will need some pizza dough. Since you are a ninja, this will be easy to acquire. On a day when you are not vanquishing enemies, you might decide to set some time aside to make your own pizza dough, but this is not strictly necessary. Frozen dough is found at many grocery stores. Alternatively, suppose one of your nemeses is a baker. Time your defeat of the baker just right, which of course will be no problem because you are a ninja, and snag up some rising pizza dough as part of your spoils.

Once you have your dough, you will need to let it rise. This may seem like an onerous, time-consuming task, but keep in mind that you do not have to be present. Use the time for further training in your ninja arts, strike fear into and/or disembowel another mortal enemy or three, wash your ninja hood, or get started on the toppings for your pizza. The toppings are where you can really let your ninjahood shine!

Suppose during the dough’s rise, you do indeed venture forth to vent your fury upon an adversary. After you have proven triumphant (which of course you will because you are a ninja), don’t be too quick to dispose of the carcass or display it as a warning to all who would defy you. Instead, take a step back and think, What might go well on my pizza?

Hungry Ninja, I herewith humbly offer a few suggestions.

Drain a bit of your opponent’s blood to use on the pizza either straight or as a tasty reduction sauce. But don’t stop at the blood; if you were able to resist tearing the still-beating heart from your adversary’s chest, instead take it to cut into chunks for your pizza. Likewise, you may do this with the liver, kidney, or brain–

Whoops! Maybe not the brain, unless you a Hungry Zombie Ninja.

Other options, and what’s pictured below, include chicken sausage, fresh mozzarella, green onions, and garlic scapes.*

*Ingredients perhaps more suitable if Mrs. Ninja will also partake

 Now that you have your toppings ready, let’s return to the dough. After its rise, you will need to stretch it out.

Ninja Tactic! For a circular crust more so in the shape of a yin/yang symbol, oil the outside of a bowl, place it on the counter upside-down, and let gravity, which is not your mortal enemy, do the work.

Dough Tactic!

Now’s a good time to preheat your oven, if you haven’t already. You’ll want it at 400 degrees F. (And I know ninjas are probably more likely to use Celsius. But you are a ninja, so you can figure out the conversion.)

Double Ninja Tactic! Use a pizza stone, and store it in your oven. Not only will your oven heat more evenly and provide your pizzas with a crisp crust (because soggy bottoms should have nothing to do with ninjas); it may come in handy if ever under attack in your own home. Say you are cornered in the kitchen. Your enemy does not know that you have a solid disc of stone in your oven. You may use your ninja reflexes to yank open the oven door, remove the stone, and fling it at your nemesis, speedily decapitating him or her. Of course, if the oven has been on the stone will be hot and may perhaps burn you, but you are ninja and so can take it, while doing further harm to your enemy. Win-win for Hungry Ninja, lose-lose for your unwise ninja enemy.

Hot stone ready for use in decapitation or pizza-making!

Your stone should heat, ideally, for around an hour. Then parbake your pizza crust for 6-8 minutes. This will ensure that the crust is baked through and does not have a doughy center after you’ve put on the toppings. Doughy centers should also have nothing to do with ninjas.

So now your crust is parbaked. You may wrap it in plastic and freeze, particularly if there is a certain foe whose heart you feel would make a sublime topping but whom you haven’t gotten around to dispatching yet, busy ninja that you are, or, if you are ready, top it with your ingredients. Turn up your oven’s heat to 450 degrees, and bake until the crust is golden brown and the adversarial blood sauce is bubbling.

Not adversarial blood but still tasty!

And there you have it, Hungry Ninja–pizza! I hope you now see just how easily pizza can work for you. Ingest your enemy’s life force and enjoy!

Disclaimer: This ought to go without saying, but this post is written for entertainment purposes only. I do not advocate using pizza stones to decapitate people, and cannibalism is just icky.

From Chapter 4. Might as well continue going in order.

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Aelis found a secluded corner in the banquet hall and covered Lyra up with one of those ludicrous and pointless curtains while she went to find a servant to bespell into directing her to the dungeons. Since the glamour had affected the servants on the way to the balcony, it must be that the reason her magic didn’t work on Lyra was a defect with the girl herself rather than Aelis’s own powers.

She felt vindicated when the successful spelling of a girl of about fifteen proved that Aelis’s suppositions were correct. She was less pleased to discover the manse had no dungeons.

“No dungeons?” she exclaimed louder than was wise, glamour or no glamour, spell of compulsion or no. “What sort of manse is this, not to have dungeons?” Honestly, where had the lords of old done their torturing? Particularly in what had started out as a fort, by all the celestial spirits?

The servant’s gaze wandered past Aelis constantly, not truly focusing on anything. “No dungeons, Lady,” the girl said in a monotone. “It’s the land, you see. Not stable enough for digging underground. It would cause the building to collapse.”

Aelis chewed her lip as she tapped at her thigh with a finger. “Well then, where are prisoners held?”

If at all possible, the girl’s blank look turned blanker. “Prisoners?”

She clenched her teeth to keep from throttling the bespelled girl. Then she would have two bodies to take care of, instead of just one. “Yes, prisoners! Enemies of the barony to be held for questioning, thieves, you know, prisoners!”

“Yaric doesn’t get prisoners, Lady.”

And the girl went back to sweeping the stairs, as she had been doing when Aelis had placed the spell upon her. Aelis had half a mind to slap the girl into obedience, but instead spat out a spell of forgetting and wheeled about on her heel to reascend the staircase. She wasn’t accustomed to relying upon physical force to induce unconsciousness, so she had no idea when Lyra might start coming to again. And that she couldn’t allow.

Her mind spun as she tried to think of a plan. If Darnett could see her now, he would give her a thorough tongue-lashing. His philosophy was that one should always go into one’s endeavors with a plan, and a backup plan, and another backup plan in case the first failed. And even then, one ought to remain flexible.

Well, she had remained flexible, which was what had gotten her into this spot of bother in the first place.

The girl was still breathing when Aelis returned to her. Drat. She’d half-hoped her blow had been severe enough to kill the girl. But of course if an annihilation spell were to work, that would be far superior, as she would be left with no corpse to contend with. Death by brute force would warrant either hiding the body or coming up with a scapegoat to blame the murder upon.

The things she did for love.

Aelis froze, limbs stiff, but then forced herself to relax.

She would just have to deal with that particular epiphany later. Now, she must focus on what to do with the girl.

This bit’s from Chapter 3. I suppose I should mention that I’m not going to post the whole novel as I do have hopes of shopping it around for agenting/publication at some point. Plus (as is to be expected, given the nature of NaNoWriMo, there’s a lot of suckage that I don’t want others to see until it’s been edited into pure awesome.

Yes. I am a big fan of positive thinking.

Anyway, here it is.

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RMFW template

The crowd in the banquet hall seemed to press in around Lyra. At least fifty bodies, most of them unknown to her, many of them shooting her calculating glances and then turning back to their own companions to gossip about the baron’s disappearance with the Lady Aelis.

Lyra knew that in situations like this, more of the blame would fall to her than to the baron. She wasn’t in her own home, after all; most of those around her were the baron’s people and therefore more likely to side with him, simply because he was the known entity. And he was prettier than she was, which galled her to admit; that a man was prettier than she, but by the time she hit twelve, she had reconciled herself to being smart rather than beautiful.

And she wouldn’t call herself plain, even, but put her beside a tall, blond man with the smile of a godling, and– Well. It didn’t take much for people to conclude that the persons involved didn’t exactly fit together.

But he was stupid, so he wouldn’t have been her choice for a husband in the first place.

Lyra sighed and fluffed her hair that immediately returned to its straight state. Creams and hot irons had all proved useless in lending her locks even a hint of curl. Cosmetics that applied smoothly to the skin of other women inexplicably clumped around her eyes, nose, and the corners of her lips. Privately, she simply reconciled herself to the statement artifice does not become her, and tried to embrace her features as they were. Or, failing that, to cultivate her other gifts.

A throat cleared at her side, and she turned, pasting a smile on her face, preparing herself to talk of the weather yet again to some busybody hoping to decipher why Lyra’s husband had disappeared with a woman who was most certainly not his betrothed. She had her phrases all set: “How I love that bracing Yaric wind!” (She’d never been all that adept a liar, but this one was becoming second nature to her.) “Oh, my, the sunsets are breathtaking here, aren’t they?” and of course, “Why, yes, I do find it a bit hot for mid-autumn, but I am sure I will get used to it as time goes by.”

It was the last one she still had trouble with, trying to sound sincere.

But the throat-clearer proved to be not yet another Yaric dignitary, but instead the waiter who had seen her in the kitchens, crying over the cake batter.

A memory she had rather forget. The cry had been necessary, she felt, but to be seen at it–

“Would you care for some wine? From what I’ve seen, you’ve had only a single glass, and that strikes me as far too few for one’s betrothal celebration.”

Despite herself, she chuckled and accepted a glass. “Thank you.”

Her eyes drifted from the server to instead scan over the guests. She was simultaneously pleased and chagrined to realize that she could name at least half of them. Then again, her father had always said she had a mind for such details, and a bent for politics. She was wasted as “just a mayor’s daughter,” he had said.

And now she was to be a baron’s wife. Oh, happy day.

“Kendrick of Pirvalle,” she said for no particular reason. She gestured with her wine glass at a man in a green velvet doublet entirely unsuited for the heat of Yaric. The man had a black goatee and spent far too much time staring at the bosom of his companion, a Mistress Yarksdale of– Damn, what was the hamlet again? She was sure it was a hamlet; nothing so very large or important. “Kendrick evidently lost his first wife in childbirth. Rumor is that he wasn’t very upset, as she was horse-faced and prone to complaining of his gambling. Though if he’s seriously thinking of making a match with Mistress Yarksdale, perhaps someone should warn him she’s an even larger gambler than he.”

Though there was no reason for the waiter to stay near her, he lingered a bit, to Lyra’s surprise.

“Is Pirvalle close to your home, then?” he asked. “For you to know a bit of their personalities, I mean.”

Across the room, over the waiter’s shoulder, Lyra caught her mother glaring at her. She withheld a sigh and noted to herself to be prepared for a lecture about speaking at lengths with the servants. Though in their own home they treated the servants more as friends, Corista felt that such behavior wasn’t at all appropriate for an incumbent baron’s wife.

Well, at least after the wedding, her mother would be back in Briggun, and her husband so occupied with using his fingers and toes to count to twenty, Lyra could arrange things as she liked. She ignored her mother’s baleful stare and returned her attention to the waiter. Dark gray eyes, with flecks of blue in them. Unusual. “No, Pirvalle isn’t particularly close to Briggun. But when the . . . match was put forth, I thought it might do me well to research Yaric’s political dealings.”

The waiter’s eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t that be difficult to achieve from a distance?” And then, seeming to remember his place, he said, “Forgive me. I shouldn’t ask questions.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Her gaze slipped away from him again, to note that now she was gaining her own set of stares. Gossip about Edmain with Lady Aelis or gossip about her speaking at length with a servant; she didn’t much care which it was. “My father may have been just the mayor, but he did like to keep in place a system of communication so he could keep abreast of the goings-on around the continent. Couriers, heralds, even just friend and relatives sending letters relating the matters at hand in places they lived or visited. He had a knack for it, I suppose you could say.”

When the silence stretched on too long, Lyra shifted on her feet. Her mother’s glare had turned into a glower, and though she spoke at intervals with guests, Lyra noticed that her conversations led her closer and closer to Lyra’s position. “Pardon me, but I think my mother wants me.” She tipped her wine in his direction. “Thank you for the wine.”

She started to turn away to get her mother’s wrath over and done with, but the waiter caught her arm, though he dropped it immediately. “My apologies.” Though he didn’t sound truly apologetic; more like he simply knew the statement was required of him and so he spoke it. “But you said had. Your father ‘had a knack for it.’ I’m sorry for your loss.” And where the sincerity had been absent from the first, it was present for that.

Lyra’s throat tightened. No, no; she was not going to cry in front of him again, particularly not when her audience had increased tenfold, and particularly not for something that had happened more than five years ago. She would not.

But her “Thank you” sounded choked nonetheless, and she had to admit that her leave-taking was closer to fleeing than a simple departure.

She hated to be undone by kindness.

The first scene of this year’s NaNo. The one I’m writing after my change on Day 3, I mean. Not horrible, but I’m sure I can edit it into something better. But editing is sacrilege for NaNoWriMo, so that’ll have to wait.
Anyway.
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1.

The charm lay heavy in Gavin’s pocket, a ball of heat that bounced against his upper thigh with every step he took. So far it seemed no one at the baron’s bethrothal party recognized him as the newly arrived charm-seller who set up shop in the Yaric marketplace each day. But then, he didn’t expect them to find him out; he did know a thing or two about setting a glamour, after all.

What did surprise him was that Aelis hadn’t caught him out. She had always been the superior illusionist, and he doubted anything had changed in the fifty years since they’d last spoken directly to one another.

“What are you doing, man?”

Gavin startled and backed away from the curtain, where he’d been peering at the curious group of people evidently deemed worthy enough to attend the baron’s bethrothal party. He turned to face the chief cook, whose name Gavin couldn’t be bothered to remember just now. So he smiled and prepared to talk his way out of trouble.

But before he could get out a single syllable, the chief cook, beefy hands placed on ample sides, lumbered into a beratement. “You’re the new serving boy, aren’t you?”

For a moment, Gavin could only stare at the rotund and sweating cook before he remembered that in his current guise, boy was an accurate term. He nodded at the cook after a considerable delay.

The cook threw his hands up in the air. “Just my luck, the new serving boy is an idiot.” He leaned close to Gavin and pointed back toward the kitchens. “You . . . go . . . to . . . kitchens. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“He speaks! He comprehends!” The cook grabbed Gavin’s arm and pulled him away from the curtain blocking the dining hall from the serving staff. “Since you do understand me after all, quit mooning after whatever spotty-faced cow you found and get back to the kitchens. Have Gerard tell you what to do.”

Evidently Gavin hadn’t mastered masking blank looks in this guise, because the head cook spluttered and slapped at him, which might have been more effective if he weren’t nearly a full foot shorter than Gavin. “Gerard, boy! The head cupbearer. The man ostensibly responsible for directing you. Though he’s doing a piss-poor job of it.” The cook relinquished Gavin’s arm, evidently trusting him to follow behind. “By Elestra the Basket Weaver—may she be blessed forever—I’ve got more than enough to handle, what with the spit boy overcooking the roast, and the new baker’s girl sobbing into the cake batter. I haven’t got time to be watching over wayward serving boys as well when it’s Gerard’s job–

“Gerard!”

The cook laid hold of Gavin’s arm again and wheeled him about to face a dark-haired man with the legs of a stork and the face of a leprous pig. Pushing Gavin forward, the cook said, “Caught your new serving boy shirking his duties, staring at the worthies in the banquet hall. Probably mooning over some unattainable mayor’s daughter. Do something with him, will you? I have to go see whether that wretched girl’s tears are making the cake batter too salty. So help me, if she’s ruined that batter….” The cook bustled off.

Gerard, who did have some height on Gavin, but only a bit, looked him up and down. “I do not recognize you.”

And now Gavin remembered his story and spouted it off accordingly. “I’m new. Last-minute substitute. My cousin Adam, he come down with some wretched sickness—got blotchy marks all over his face and he’s been puking since dawn. His mother reckons it might be croup–”

Gerard lifted a forestalling hand. “Whatever his ailment, I don’t care to hear it.” He turned on his heel. “Follow.”

Gavin trailed after the lanky man to the kitchens, where the chief cook haranged a hapless-looking spit boy but left the sobbing baker’s girl to herself.

As he and Gerard passed the crying girl who stood over a vat of batter, Gavin did a double-take. Since when did baker’s girls wear silk underneath their aprons? He opened his mouth to say something—whether to her or to Gerard or the chief cook he didn’t know—but then she lifted her eyes from the batter and met his gaze. Light from the sconces on the walls caught the unshed tears in her eyes and made them shine. She shook her head in a clear plea for silence.

Gavin closed his mouth. The girl gave him a small smile. An unfortunately long nose kept her from being truly pretty, but Gavin rather thought that when her eyes weren’t puffy and her skin not blotchy from crying, she’d manage striking.

“Boy.”

Gavin turned to face Gerard again just in time to avoid a collision. The other man had stopped at a table whose top was covered with decanters of wine. Gerard frowned. “I believe I see what Kaven meant about you mooning about. You’re to take this wine and serve it in the banquet hall to whoever asks for it. Think you can manage that without staring at girls, crying or otherwise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Gerard pressed a bottle into Gavin’s hand. “No staring at the worthies. Baron Edmain would likely pay no mind, but we have a lot of visitors, and you never know if one of them might. Now get to it, boy.” Gerard shoved Gavin forward as if he meant to propel Gavin all the way back to the banquet hall.

Boy. Gavin mouthed the word. It’d be some time before he readjusted to not looking old anymore.

Well, as old. The last twenty years of Aelis’ curse were proving stubborn. Gavin just hoped that tonight’s bit of illusion wouldn’t set him back in his progress.

But he’d found the harpy. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to exact his revenge.

Even with that happy thought, he slowed a bit to see whether he could confirm his supposition about the silk-wearing baker’s girl, but her station by the cauldron of cake batter was empty. Pity. She had certainly been worth a second look.

Behind Gavin’s back, Gerard cleared his throat. Gavin increased his stride.

No matter about the girl; he had a charm to cast, justice to mete, and acting the part of serving boy would make his task all the easier.

This is for making me old, you harpy.

By the time he returned to the banquet hall, he suspected his grin was too broad for that of a mere serving boy, but he found he didn’t much care.

Okay, at Starbucks, just hanging around until it’s time to head out for dinner theater. Promised myself I’d finally get some planning done, though by “planning” I currently mean freewriting and hoping something decent comes out of it. I have a Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte by my laptop, and a book to read in case I really luck out with planning. But hopefully that won’t happen, as we’re now 10 days away from the start of NaNo, and I still only have a basic plot.

I have thought, though, that my Big Bad is going to be Neptune or Poseidon or a decendent. Motivation on his (or her, if decendent) part can be to get the Stradivarius as the power of the siren spirits inside it can help reestablish the Big Bad’s precendence/godlike status–or become a god in the case of the decendent?

I do keep saying I want to have kids, but there is currently one here who is a babbler, a high-pitched babbler, and [redacted] the child is annoying. Very annoying.

Anyway. Descendent would want to become a god, or Neptune/Poseidon wants to get back to the old status. I’m currently thinking the Big Bad will be a descendent–seems to fit better. Rich, probably, because she’d need the resources to hunt down this Stradivarius in particular.

And I’d turned off my Internet in order to save battery, but I may need to turn it back on–can’t remember what connection, if any, Neptune/Poseidon had with the sirens. Or even which one is Greek. If I’m going to go with sirens, might as well use the Greek version of the sea god, hey?

Or the Big Bad could be Athena or Aphrodite or whoever it was who supposedly sprang out of the ocean foam. Or a descendent, as the drill goes.

Ah, good! Poseidon is the Greek version. I was thinking I like the name better. Which isn’t as much of an issue if I go the descendent route, but still.

Got the Internet going again. Poseidon fathered Orion, looks like, and he raped lots and lots of women. So maybe my Big Bad is a descendent of Orion, a little more happy than being descended from, say, the “Giant Sinius,” and she’s got a sort of nobility complex, so to speak.

Whoops, looks like Orion was a rapist, too. Okay, so my Big Bad has issues with being descended from a line of rapists. Maybe she’s not quite a man-hater, but she doesn’t particularly like them–well, maybe she prefers women all the way around. Hmm.

She’s not directly in this book, anyway. Or at least I don’t think she is. But at least I’m thinking about the backstory. It’ll help the series (oh, am I seriously thinking series before I even know if the first book works?) go more smoothly.

Okay, looks like Aphrodite was the sea-foam goddess, but I don’t immediately see that she had much connection to Poseidon. For that matter, I’m not sure how much connection Poseidon had with the sirens. Though it’s my world, so I can do what I like.

Another issue is what I want to do with whole Greco-Roman bit. If I get into the whole Pantheon, am I saying that all the gods/goddesses are single, with the two names, or that there are (were) different entities?

Right now I’m thinking just the single set. I suppose in the backstory the divergence of the Greco and Roman gods could’ve resulted in split personalities–the whole “followers’ faiths giving rise to gods’ mainfestations” bit that comes up with decent regularity. But I’m not 100% sure about that.

And yet another consideration is how God in Judeo-Christian terms comes into things.

Loud baby is gone now. She was cute when she wasn’t going “Ah ba ba ba ba!” at the top of her lungs.

Anyway. My God. I hate to say that my God doesn’t exist in this fictional world. And Shay sings in a choir. The gospel songs soothe her and that deathsong thing. So there’s a definite place for the Judeo-Christian God–and I hate referring to him like this, since he is my God and I am a Christian and I hate trying to figure out how my faith, exactly, fits in with the things I write. Which is a terrible thing to write–I shouldn’t hate it at all. But it doesn’t come easily to me. I don’t have it in me to write quote-unquote Christian fiction. It’s hard, hard, hard to do well.

Or maybe that’s just an excuse to make myself feel better for not writing stories involving the love of Jesus.

[Redacted as I went into a long discussion about my obligations as a Christian and as a writer to myself, my audience, and the story that had nothing to do with NaNo plot development. Though it may make for an interesting post if I can get some cohesive and coherent thoughts together rather than brain-vomit.]

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And I’ve got another three pages where I delved a bit more into my main character and tried to name my male MC, but three pages single-spaced is a bit much for a single post.

Bear with me, readers-that-be. Next week we’ll actually be into NaNo, so theoretically I’ll have an actual excerpt to post, which should be more interesting.

Theoretically.

Okay, it being October, I’m starting to get semiserious about NaNoWriMo prep. I’ve changed my idea twice now, but I think this one is going to stick. I’m going with urban fantasy, which I’d initially thought to not do since I’d figured the market has to hit the saturation point fairly soon, but my trips to the bookstore so far indicate that the genre is still pretty healthy. However, I think the vampires/werewolves aspect is about to reach saturation point, so I’m doing something a bit different. My MC is descended from a line of sirens, works as a lounge singer/maybe bartender in a Nashville nightclub, and totes a Stradivarius that contains the psyches, I guess, of her ancestors.

Coughbuttherearestillwerewolvescough.*

Plot is still vague. I tend to develop my characters first and get more of a plot later. One of my favorite techniques for developing character, and, as a side-effect, story, is the character interview. Author meets character. Yup. It also helps, usually, to get all the fourth-wall breaking out of my system pre-NaNo so I don’t resort to it for word padding.

Usually. I make no promises.

Anyway,  I’m here posting my first “interview” with my MC, Shay Donovan.

I do have some nebulous thoughts about the story, which the interview alludes to, but since most everything is still sort of vague, I’m not (yet) going to explain it.**

So yeah. The creative mind at work.*** Here goes.

Character Interview: Shay Donovan

Amanda: Okay, we’ll see how this goes as I don’t really have any questions prepared and want to use this as my Thursday 300 post so I can kill two birds with one stone. And I’m leading off with a cliché. That does not bode well. Ack! Another one!

Shay: So do you want me to be snarky about that or comforting or what?

Amanda: I don’t know. That’s why I’m doing this character interview. It worked sort of well for my Every Day After project.

Shay: Except for the fact that you never finished it.

Amanda: Okay, I think I’d prefer you to be comforting. I don’t think you’re snarky. First question: How do you like being a lounge singer?

Shay: [shrugs] Well, it pays my bills, doesn’t it? [pause] I mean that seriously. I am solvent, aren’t I?

Amanda: At the moment. I’m not really seeing major financial difficulties as a point of tension in the book, even as a subplot. But go into a little more detail about your job aside from the financial aspects. Have you found your calling? (And you can ignore that I’ve just put in yet another cliché. This is a writing exercise. Clichés don’t count.)

Shay: My calling. Well, considering that I’m descended from a long line of sirens, that I get paid for singing is mostly a good thing. I guess. I don’t like that I have to be careful and not let myself go all-out, so to speak.

Amanda: That would be on account of potentially causing people to kill themselves.

Shay: Which you do need to develop a little further, you know. Yes, I know I’m based in Nashville and therefore landlocked, so it’s not like I’m going to cause hapless sailors to crash on hidden rocks and drown or whatever, but how exactly would people in a nightclub be lead to their deaths from the beauty of my singing? Walk into an amplifier and electrocute themselves?

Amanda: Well, it’s a thought…

Shay: Keep thinking.

Amanda: What did I say about the snarkiness? I know this is an urban fantasy and all, and it’s like the thing for the main characters to be smart-alecky, but I’m trying to buck tradition a bit here. I mean, sirens in Nashville, that hasn’t been done yet. I don’t think so, anyway.

Shay: …

Amanda: Hey! I’m already past 300 words according to OpenOffice’s counter. Score!

Shay: And you were actually considering the “Tuesday 200” as opposed to the “Thursday 300.”

Amanda: Gotta keep the alliteration, you know.

Shay: Well, written blathering has never really been your problem. Think you’re going to get the novel done in 100k or less?

Amanda: It could happen. Particularly if I have a decent plot drawn out. Speaking of, so your Stradivarius gets stolen at some point.

Shay: I know, and if I could kill you with my song, I’d do it now.

Amanda: You’re a lot meaner than I thought.

Shay: Probably your own latent antisocial tendencies. So my Stradivarius is stolen by my as-yet-unnamed archenemy who’s even more evil than the– Quit staring at your split ends! You’re not getting anything done. Keep at this. You don’t have to give up on it just because you’ve already hit 300 words.

Amanda: I know. Sorry. I really envy Stephen King and his navel stories. Wish I could feel like a story is just getting pulled straight from my navel to the page. It is sort of strange that he’d pick the navel rather than the brain or the heart, but then again back in the 1600s or so, the bowels were supposed to be the seat of emotions rather than the heart. At least, that’s what I remember from Freshman English…

Shay: Your mind goes to the strangest places. I could wish that someone else created me.

Amanda: Well, you’re stuck. I’d apologize but I’m still not happy with you talking about killing me with your song.

Shay: Hey, you’re the one who envisioned the “death song” as always being on the peripherary of my consciousness, flicking about the corners of my brain, just waiting for me to hum a bar or two.

Amanda: And it gets worse when you play the Stradivarius.

Shay: Why– Oh, it’s because it has the spirits of my dead ancestors in it, and their combined, er, siren-ness gets a little difficult to ignore.

Amanda: Hey, that’s progress! Only I hope it doesn’t sound quite so lame or unoriginal when I’ve fleshed it out a little bit.

Shay: Watch me be comforting! [clears throat] There, there. This is only the development process, and you’ll only be writing the first draft. Editing and excising of the lameness will come later.

Amanda: That kind of helped. I guess. But anyway (and here comes my fourth cliché) the Stradivarius is kind of a double-edged sword, because it does make you more, um, siren-like and powerful, but if you can harness the…

Shay: Don’t do it! Keep your hair in that ponytail.

Amanda: [puts hand back on keyboard] Right. But if you can harness the power boost (sounds like a crappy Japanese fighter game, “power boost”) and use it for your more positive abilities—the happy songs that are more life-inducing and healing and all that—then that’s a good thing. And I’ll wordsmith that later. Not sure I want to mention “happy songs” when talking about your particular abilities.

Shay: Yup, just keep up that mantra. It’s just the planning stage for the first draft. Edit later.

Amanda: See, that’s the kind of supportiveness I like!

Shay: Well, you’ve got me saving a stranger bleeding profusely from the abdomen in the first chapter. I’d hope that’s indicative of at least a modicum of niceness.

Amanda: We may have to dumb down your vocabulary a bit, though.

Shay: Hey!

Amanda: No offense.

Shay: Offense still taken.

Amanda: Just remember that I’m giving you a Stradivarius to play. That should count for something.

Shay: It’d count for more if it didn’t get stolen.

Amanda: The when on that is still up in the air. It could get played out into the sequel, if there is one.

Shay: In which case the theft would last across books. You’re not helping any, Helms.

Amanda: I’d apologize, but it’s a writer’s job to make her characters’ lives as sucky as possible before fixing things. Otherwise there’s no drama or tension and nobody will want to read the book.

Shay: [grumbles]

Amanda: Well, I think I’m calling it quits for now. I’m going to blame my low blood pressure. Hope it’s nothing serious.

Shay: Most likely momentary. But of course if it’s still low when you try to donate blood next week, you should probably head to the doctor.

Amanda: Aww, see, you are nice.

Shay: And I’d be even nicer if I got to keep the Stradivarius.

Amanda: Not happening.

Shay: [grumbles]

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*Hey, saturation point or no, I figure there might be some crossover appeal. Don’t judge me.

**Plus I’m sure the explanation would hit more than 300 words, so I’d prefer to hoard that for another Thursday 300. I’m lazy that way.

***Can be a frightening thing.

Since the actual post is long enough, figured I’d put this in another entry.

On the whole, I’m pleased with the monster prompt. Major issue is that there’s not enough hints from the beginning that Jeremy didn’t like his dog much, but for something that’s hardly edited (I added an “a” and changed a “for” to “of” and checked for misspellings) I think it turned out well.

But honestly I’m not likely to post my abject failures. Maybe the self-critique thing is unnecessary.

Prompt from Writer’s Digest

When you were little, you could swear there was a monster under your bed—but no one believed you. On the eve of your 30th birthday, you hear noises coming from under your bed once again. The monster is back and has an important message to deliver to you.

I can’t really imagine anything worse than waking up on your thirtieth birthday and realizing you’re still the same failure you were at twenty-nine, at twenty-eight, twenty-three, all the way down to six years old, before it even occurred to you that you could be a failure. But in kindergarten art class, I was a failure. Mrs. Morgenstern complained—but in a nice way, as all kindergarten teachers should—that my pictures were all the same.

“And what have you drawn, Jeremy?” she’d ask, sliding my crayon-covered scribbling out from under my palms. She’d examine the picture, lips pursing, then sigh and blow out her bangs, lift a hand to smooth them out of her face. “It’s the monster again, Jeremy.” Said in a flat, you’re-a-failure-and-you-don’t-even-know-it-you-poor-idiot tone.

“It lives under my bed,” I’d say, like I hadn’t told her that every day of art class in the weeks she’d been my teacher.

“Now, Jeremy.” Mrs. Mortgenstern would give me my paper back, a frown playing at her lips. “You know that monsters don’t really exist. You have a dog, don’t you? Or some other pet? Why don’t you draw me a picture of him?”

I didn’t draw a picture of Rover because the monster had eaten him, and drawing pictures of my dead dog brought up unpleasant memories. Not that anyone believed me about that; the story was that Rover had run away one day, “like dogs sometimes do,” according to my Mom. But she hadn’t heard the crunching, and the whimpers. I had.

In the intervening years we’d moved to a new, monster-free house, and I’d done my best to move on, too, and draw pictures of things other than monsters and think about things other than dead or missing dogs. Childhood failures fade, eventually. The adult failures are more difficult to let go of.

But back to the being thirty and a failure bit.

The night before I was to turn thirty, I shucked down my bedsheets, ruminating on how I wasn’t married and indeed hadn’t had a girlfriend in over three years, how my job as a manager at the chicken processing facility was so not what I’d envisioned my future to be, how I still lived in a crummy apartment and had no five- or even a ten-year plan to get out of it, and I thought about how all those problems would seem that much worse in the morning because I’d shifted from two-nine to three-oh.

What a difference a change in two digits can make.

At 10:32 I flicked off the light and told myself I was going to sleep. At 10:33 I heard a familiar rattling under the bed. A rattling I hadn’t heard in over twenty years; a rattling I’d have rather forgot.

“No.” I said it aloud because the negation felt more real that way. Solid. Powerful. A force to be reckoned with, as they say. “I’m not hearing anything. It’s an… aural hallucination induced by dread of turning th-th-thirty.”

More rattling. I screwed my eyes shut tight, and my hands grasped fistfuls of the sheets, willing my brain to stop hallucinating.

But it didn’t stop, and at some point you decide it’s worse to actually be insane than to let the insane thing happen. I sat bolt-upright in the bed. “All right then, you bloody beast! Come out!”

The rattling stopped. For a moment all I heard was my own breathing, harsh and ragged in my ears. Blood rushed in my head and my heart struggled to beat its way out of my chest. Images of Rover—I hadn’t been the most imaginative child when it came to naming things—flashed through my brain, his tiny stump of a tail bobbing back and forth as he bared his lips and barked and barked and barked at the thing under my bed. He’d known there was something there.

I forced the thoughts away and my breath to ease, and then I heard a sort of scuffling, shuffling noise. And I had to have imagined the slight weight pressing on the end of my bed, just past my feet. I lived alone. Not even another pet; another symbol of my failure at life. So there couldn’t be anything else at the end of the bed.

But there was.

My hand shook—only a little, I told myself—as I reached out to my bedside to flick on the light.

A creature hardly bigger than a border collie sat on my bed, blinking at me. It was purple—in my pictures I’d always used green, never haven gotten a good look at it—with bulbous, watery eyes. It lifted a stubby, clawed hand to block the light. “Would you mind putting that out? It burns.”

Automatically I reached out to turn off the light again, but then I stopped and glowered at the beast. “No. You’re the monster who lived under my bed when I was six, aren’t you.”

It squinted and lifted up its other hand to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. It peered at it, then back at me. “You Jeremy Copenhagen?”

“Yeah.”

The thing drew itself up to its full, and, now that I was six-two rather than four-two, unimpressive height. “Yeah, I’m your monster. Could you turn out the light, please? It’s hurting my eyes.”

A steady, hard anger had begun to build in my chest once I realized what the creature was, and now it burst over. “Hell no, I’m not turning out the light! First you scare me to death each night for a year, culminating in the eating of my dog, then you have the gall to invade my home twenty-plus years later and you want me to turn off the light because it hurts you? You’re lucky I don’t have access to a floodlight!”

A moment of silence. “Okay, you have a point.”

It cleared its throat while I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at it. “What do you want?”

Sighing, it blinked a few more times and then peered at its piece of paper again and once more cleared its throat. “Hello. My name is Grar. I am here because I have done you harm. I apologize for the harm I have done to you, fully and sincerely—”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

Grar glanced at me. “It’s part of Step Nine.”

Brow creasing, I said, “You mean Step Nine as in the Twelve Steps? That Step Nine?”

Grar began to look uncomfortable. “Um. Back when I. Um. It was a very dark time for me.”

I stared at the small creature.

Grar scratched at the side of its nonexistant neck. “I was under a lot of stress, you see. My wife had left me not too long ago, human kids weren’t scaring so easily since all those video games with the blood and the guts had come out, and I couldn’t sleep in the day like I should. So I started drinking just to help block out the light—” Here a hopeful glance toward my own bedside light. Face twisting, I reached out and turned the switch to shift it from 60 watts to 75. Grar grimaced and shut his—couldn’t keep calling him it—eyes, covered them with his free hand. “—then one night that little dog of yours started yapping and barking and barking and yapping, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“So you ate him.”

Removing his hand, Grar looked at me piteously. “I was drunk! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

Swinging my legs off the side of the bed, I marched to Grar and punched his diminutive shoulder. “You ate my dog! And no one believed me when I told them!”

Grar huddled in on himself, clutching the paper to his head. “I’m sorry.”

I hit him again. He let out a small whimper, but didn’t retaliate. I drew back my hand one more time, paused, and let it fall.

Honestly, I hadn’t been that fond of Rover. He liked my sister better, and that always galled me. And Grar— it was hard to hate him, purple sniveling thing that he was. He paled in comparison to the horrors of Turning Thirty and Remaining a Failure. Beating Grar wouldn’t take any of that away.

I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Will you leave now and never come back, now that you’ve apologized?”

Grar perked up. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Yes. No. Ask me when I’m thirty.” I stopped. That would mean he’d have to come back. “Or don’t, actually.” I made shooing motions at him. “Just… go away and don’t drink anymore.”

Grar regarded me, absentmindedly crumpling his paper. “So that’s a maybe? I can deal with a maybe.”

More shooing motions. “Okay, then. Maybe I forgive you. Now go away and don’t come back. I’ve had enough with monsters.”

He hopped on to the floor and tucked the piece of paper into some fold of skin. “Hey, thanks, Jeremy. You’re my first Step Nine, and it didn’t go as bad as I thought it would. It’s not like I’m high up in the ranks or anything, but I’ll try to make sure your kids—you got kids? No? Well, when you have ‘em, I’ll do my best to make sure my people don’t bother them.” He paused. “Only, if you get ‘em a dog, pick something that doesn’t bark so much, maybe?”

I dropped my head in my hands. “Yeah. Sure.”

Grar hesitated. “Um. I really am sorry.”

“Just go away, Grar.”

Some scuffling, then silence. I waited five minutes, then looked up and around. The only sign of Grar’s presence was a torn bit of paper hardly larger than an eraser tip. I climbed back into bed, trying not to feel hopeful.

When, Grar had said. When I have kids. Not that the monster’s words counted for anything, but maybe I wouldn’t stay a failure forever.

And maybe Rover had tasted like chicken. I really didn’t like that dog.

First off, I have to admit that after writing the Monday Miscellany post, I had a moment of doubt as I was falling asleep, that I’d glorified the writing process more than it’s worth–like it’s some grand undertaking that only the brave can withstand, and that one has to make grievous sacrifices in order to complete it.

But then the next morning, I saw a commercial for Miracle Whip that exhorted mayonnaise to “move over,” because Miracle Whip refuses to “disappear in the background” or “blend in”: “We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down.”

So I felt better about myself after witnessing that bit of marketing pomposity for a condiment.

Anyway. My first Thursday 300 post is based upon the following Prompt from Writer’s Digest online:

Your family isn’t cooperating with your writing career, so you’ve decided to go on strike. Write a list of demands that must be met in order for you to return to your chores and household responsibilities. (Don’t forget to make a concession or two to speed up the negotiation process.)

Only I’m changing it a bit, since living on my own means I’d be the only one punished by my refusal to clean the bathroom or cook. Since I don’t like slovenliness or starving, it’d be rather counterproductive to go on strike from chores. And my family is actually pretty supportive of my desire to write–though I’m sure it helps that I’m self-supported and don’t beg them for money. Nor do I subject them to whining about my writer’s block or the difficulties of characterization or plotting. No strife there.

So I’m not striking from anything, and instead involving my family, I’m going to make demands of my Inner Critic, Inner Editor, and Inner Procrastinator.

Okay, I guess that really isn’t like the prompt. But it served as a springboard, which is the whole purpose of a prompt, right? Right?

Moving on.

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Me: Okay, so since I’m getting back into writing and particularly gearing up for my sixth year of NaNoWriMo, I figure we ought to set a few ground rules. Sound good?

Inner Critic: [opens mouth to reply]

Me: [Verbally rolls over IC]: First off, and I mean you, Inner Critic, there is to be no denigrating the story during the rough draft. The important thing, as NaNoWriMo has taught us, is to get it done so you have something to work with. Next–

Inner Critic: Are you sure about that? I mean, I could save you loads of time down the line by pointing out immediately when you’ve written something stupid.

Me: The point, though, is to not stifle the creative process. And it’s difficult to see the quality of something when you’re in the midst of it, anyway. That whole forest and trees bit, you know.

IC: Well, fine, but I think you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Me: [Clears throat] Next, Inner Procrastinator, I don’t care how much you think staring at the split ends of my hair helps get the creative juices flowing; it doesn’t. Cut that out when we’re at the computer.

Inner Procrastinator: But what about when you’re really, really stuck? I mean, sure, I get that you don’t want Inner Critic mucking things up by prematurely deeming your work massive suckitude, but you know, sometimes the words just don’t come.

Me: [Glares at IP] If the words don’t come, then I write anyway.

IC: But that’s what gets you into trouble with breaking the fourth wall! And then you have all that “And then the characters looked to the author, pleading for direction” crap to cut. It wastes time.

Me: [Grits teeth] Fine, then I’ll write something else, like in my journal. Or go for a walk to think things over.

Inner Editor: Or you could read through what you’ve written and fix all the misspellings and errant commas.

Me: But there’s no point in doing that early, in case I wind up cutting the scene later. I’ll have wasted time.

IC: I’ve often thought that the quality of a work can be judged by the amount of grammatical errors it contains. If you’ve got a lot of them, you’re writing crap.

Me: For the last time, it’s a rough draft! It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s not going to be perfect! I just want the raw material to work with, and all of you are stumbling blocks to getting it! [Takes deep breath and stands back.] You know what? Screw this. You’re all imaginary, anyway. I can take you down. [Grabs a handy flamethrower and proceeds to torch the IC, IP, and IE, all of whom scream in a piteous and most satisfying manner.]

Me: [Sets down flamethrower, dusts off hands, and regards the charred remains of the IC, IP, and IE.] There, now. That was cathartic.

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And how!